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Glass strategy: Hanford’s enhanced waste glass program
The mission of the Department of Energy’s Office of River Protection (ORP) is to complete the safe cleanup of waste resulting from decades of nuclear weapons development. One of the most technologically challenging responsibilities is the safe disposition of approximately 56 million gallons of radioactive waste historically stored in 177 tanks at the Hanford Site in Washington state.
ORP has a clear incentive to reduce the overall mission duration and cost. One pathway is to develop and deploy innovative technical solutions that can advance baseline flow sheets toward higher efficiency operations while reducing identified risks without compromising safety. Vitrification is the baseline process that will convert both high-level and low-level radioactive waste at Hanford into a stable glass waste form for long-term storage and disposal.
Although vitrification is a mature technology, there are key areas where technology can further reduce operational risks, advance baseline processes to maximize waste throughput, and provide the underpinning to enhance operational flexibility; all steps in reducing mission duration and cost.
K. L. Sequoia, H. Huang, R. B. Stephens, K. A. Moreno, K. C. Chen, A. Nikroo
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 59 | Number 1 | January 2011 | Pages 35-38
Technical Paper | Nineteenth Target Fabrication Meeting | doi.org/10.13182/FST59-35
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Inertial confinement fusion capsules must be manufactured with a high degree of azimuthal symmetry to avoid degradation by Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities. Therefore, the azimuthal fluctuations of each capsule must be characterized. We have developed a precision radiography method capable of measuring X-ray optical depth fluctuations to 1 part in 104 with a spatial resolution of 120 m. Achieving the measurement accuracy requires counting many photons.Recent measurements of glow discharge polymer (GDP) capsules show that the high X-ray intensity required to minimize measurement time modifies the GDP shell by increasing the oxygen atomic percent. An equatorial band forms that is more optically dense than the remainder of the capsule. We believe that free radicals are formed in the GDP as a result of the X-ray exposure. These free radicals preferentially absorb oxygen from the air. We will discuss how this optically dense band forms, how it is measured, and possible solutions to this issue.